The Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors will hold off on selling its $7 million industrial park bond prior to negotiations, following minor problems with the interest rate cost spread over the 15-year agreement.
Supervisors fielded three bids, and the bid by Regions Banks, with the lowest net interest cost of 3.71 percent, is expected to move forward after slight adjustments are made. County bond attorneys will now renegotiate the variances in interest costs, and approach the board on Dec. 19 with a new agreement.
State law prohibits large differences between the initial and final maturities of a bond, and requires municipalities and financial institutions to have a relatively level interest payment schedule over the course of a bond.
The limitations are to safeguard against varying payment schedules, which could endanger the financial health of a municipality over the life of a bond. The renegotiation is allowed under state law to give Regions an opportunity to correct the minor error, as long as the resulting net interest cost is at or below the bid of 3.71 percent interest over 15 years. The city's agreement for its $7 million bond will run over the course of 20 years, due to millage revenue variances from the county.
Supervisors unanimously approved the renegotiation.
Work on the site at the interchange of Highway 389 and Highway 82 is set to begin in early 2017. Officials hope to market the park ahead of a possible opening in 2018.
Starkville aldermen will follow suit on selling their $7 million bond in January, according to development officials.
Zoning on the 360-acre site is set for Dec. 13, and surveying at the site "should be complete," GTR LINK CEO Joe Max Higgins said. Higgins expects the LINK will buy the site in late February, he added.
Slight adjustments were made at the park that impacted the specific layout of future tenant sites, and lots could be divided on an individual basis, and not before tenants locate to the area. With the adjustments, the location of the substation could now move closer to Sudduth Road. The layout of the road plan for the project is also expected to change. Once rezoned, adjoining properties would need to be acquired before construction could begin.
Land surveying must be done ahead of any transaction on the site, and was preceded by crews surveying the area for Native American cultural artifacts. Mitigation costs sit around $2 million, and a final report was sent to area tribes, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Oct. 27.
A conference call between development officials and all involved parties is set for mid-December to finalize the report.
All administrative work must be completed before a land transaction can occur. To streamline efforts, the city and county created a Regional Economic Development Agreement to handle all future transactions and purchase orders. REDAs were created by the state to help municipalities organize project objectives.